


Morpheus's Nightmare

by Arsyn_in_Heaven



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F, Holtzbert - Freeform, Insomnia, Maybe some hurt/comfort in chapter 2, Non-specified Neurodivergence, Rating May Change, neurodivergent holtzmann, sleep deprivation?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 09:26:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8839303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsyn_in_Heaven/pseuds/Arsyn_in_Heaven
Summary: Holtzmann was incredibly difficult to predict. That, at least, Erin was able to determine. It didn't seem to matter how well she had come to know Holtzmann, or how much time she'd spend observing her (for purely scientific reasons, of course), or even what basic humans needed to function. 
The impossibility of the task had not deterred Erin's studies at first, but now, she just wanted to know.
When does Holtzmann sleep?





	

“Holtz?”

“Hmm?”

“...When do you sleep?” 

Ironically ( _Not the correct utilization of irony in this case, but, indeed, the colloquial usage_ ), the thought had kept Erin up at night, mind sorting through the activities of the day and inevitably landing on Holtzmann. This wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. She figured her fixation on the girl had mostly to do with the amount of danger that she attracted, in one form or another. If Erin wasn’t afraid that Holtz was going to destroy the city with improper handling of volatile materials, she was afraid that Holtz wasn’t going to fill out her tax forms, or wouldn’t remember to lock up the Firehouse, or wasn’t eating enough protein or veggies or anything remotely healthy at all, really.

 

_“Pringles are not on the food pyramid, Holtzmann.”_  

_“Ohhhh, Erin. My sweet, precious, misinformed Erin. Yes they are... On one of the other sides.”_

_“Other sides.”_

_“Yes. Other sides. It’s a ‘pyramid’, Erin, not a triangle. I know you have basic geometry stored somewhere in that genius noggin’ of yours.”_

_(Later on, Erin realized that the pyramid was meant to be a 2-D representation of the_ **_inside_ ** _of a pyramid, so there were no sides involved at all, but she couldn’t figure out how to bring it up without revealing that she had been thinking about it for too long.)_

 

It was a solid theory- that anxiety fueled her late nights. They had fueled so many before. But these nights felt a little stranger than before The ‘Nice Guy’ Apocalypse, as Holtz had aptly dubbed it. She would think about what Holtzmann was doing (or wasn’t doing), and her heart would race, just as it would when she felt any kind of anxiety. But it was also accompanied by a strange warm sensation that she was less familiar with. She came up with another hypothesis, then, that perhaps the whole ordeal had changed her.

Perhaps, now, she was…

_a thrill seeker_.

She did quite enjoy capturing ghosts, despite the dangers. And there was always a level of satisfaction that followed a successful capture accomplished despite a higher level of danger encountered (usually correlated strongly with a higher level of class in the ghosts themselves, though a few ill-tempered and clever entities of lower classes did manage to cause quite a ruckus on occasion). However, whenever Holtzmann would create a ‘tiny poof’ (what Holtzmann described as ‘tiny’ was always, without fail, larger than what she would call ‘large’) Erin’s heart would beat rapidly, in a distinctively _cold_ way that ditched all theories of some new thrill seeking identity for Erin.

She wondered what the difference between these kinds of thoughts were, but she also wondered what trouble Holtzmann could possibly be getting into, and that simply took up more of her brain power.

The first time this question of sleep had occurred to Erin was a couple weeks after they had saved New York, when Erin was heading home uncharacteristically late and Holtzmann was still banging around on the second floor. Erin stopped upstairs to say goodnight and asked when she would be heading home. She just shrugged, arms submerged up to her elbows in one of her machines, and said, “When I’m done.”

Erin looked at the contraption, and having no idea what it was (and knowing Holtz wouldn’t tell her until it was ready), she had no way of knowing how close it was to finished. So she just shook her head and filed the query away for later.

Later was the next morning, when Holtzmann was there before her, and yet chipper as always. She was wearing new clothes and a slightly different, but predictably wild, arrangement of her hair. So she must have gone home, right? Erin was in the middle of asking if she had slept at all when they were all called away on a bust and she forgot about it.

She wouldn’t remember again until a few months after that, when Holtzmann headed home at 5pm on the dot, before even Patty, who always needed her ‘beauty sleep.’

 

“ _You don’t sleep at 6pm, Patty, you’re not that beautiful”_

_“I know you did not just say that, Abby, because everyone here knows that I damn right_ **_am_ ** _that beautiful… But you right I should say I need my beauty ‘rest’. There. That better, language police?”_

_“No, get back here, we’re so close to figuring out why hotels from the 50s have so much activit- Patty? Patty, we’re so close!”_

 

Holtz had looked dead tired, and Erin didn’t use the word ‘dead’ lightly. She had walked by all of them without a word, yellow goggles not quite managing to hide her drooping eyelids, and headed for the door. When Patty threw a “You alright?” at Holtzmann’s back, she had simply raised her hands in the air and gave two thumbs up, never looking their way as she exited the building. Erin had turned to Abby who shrugged and said, “She must’ve burned herself out somehow. Happens.”

Erin hadn’t witnessed that since then, but she still wondered, when Holtzmann would show them an invention in the morning that they’d only discussed the night before, or when she would nap anywhere from 15 minutes to 5 hours in the afternoon, or even when she would on suddenly go home at the same time as Erin.

Erin would have asked before, but it was so puzzling that her inner scientist had been activated and was determined to figure it out through the powers of observation alone. She had taken to spending a lot of time working on the second floor anyway, since Holtz would sporadically need an equation from her. They’d learned the hard way that Erin should just be in yelling distance incase there was an adjustment that needed to be made quickly. (Erin had been assured that it ‘is the fun floor anyway’, and even though she’d rolled her eyes at the time, Holtzmann hadn’t been exactly wrong.) So it should have been easy to figure out Holtzmann’s patterns. But whenever Erin thought she’d figured out her system, she slept or didn’t sleep at a different time than expected. 

Erin hated losing, but she also loved knowing. So knowing finally won out one day, finally pushed over the edge by the sight of Holtzmann yawning.

 

“That’s a good question.”

Holtzmann was sitting leisurely on her chair, feet crossed on her main work table and pushing the limits of how far back she could lean before physics decided she was being taunted and lashed out. Erin ignored her ever-constant internal alarm ( _She has highly sensitive materials in her hand, for christ’s sake. Is she doing this on purpose?_ ) and pushed on, setting down her notebook. 

“Does it have an answer?”

“Most things do, Lucky Charm’s.”

She had taken to calling her by the names of sugary cereals.

 

_“Because breakfast is such a painfully_ **_normal_ ** _, consistent, straight-laced and adult human thing we’re all supposed to have on all of the days. Like your food pyramid, you know?”_

_“Oh! I was thinking- well, not thinking, just- well, you know. About the food pyramid-”_

_“Cereal should be really boring! You know, tree bark. Fiber and grain. Wood chips. But it’s really good! It’s sweet. I like it... And I like you.”_  

_“Oh. Well -ha- um... Thanks.”_

 

Erin didn’t mind the nicknames so much.

“Well what _is_ the answer?” 

“No.” 

“No?” 

“Exactly.” She flashed her teeth in that special “I know I’m being difficult” way, and Erin could only respond with the same withering look she always gave.

Holtzmann laughed and continued, “The answer to sleep is ‘No’. I don’t sleep a lot.”

“Yeah, well,” Erin straightened the notebook on her unofficial desk, “I figured out that part. But what is the schedule?”

Holtzmann’s eyebrows shot up as she grinned.

“Schedule?”

“Yes. How often? What is your system?”

“Erin,” Holtzmann placed her invention on the desk and walked over to where Erin sat, placing her hands on either side of her face and looking down at her like she was a foolish, but endearing child.

“There is no system.”

Erin found it unfortunate that, as her cheeks grew hot, Holtz could likely feel it.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” She dropped her hands and walked back toward her working area. 

“Wait. There’s nothing? I thought it’d be like every three days you… I actually don’t know what I thought. But at least a mean time that you deviate a lot from? Some kind of something...” 

Holtz sat back in her seat, spinning around as she spoke, “I don’t know, maybe there is a pattern that I can’t see. I don’t really pay attention. I just work when I have ideas and sleep when they run out. Which, luckily, doesn’t happen much.” 

Erin squinted at her and spoke, “You only sleep. When you run out. Of. Ideas.”

“Well, if my brain stops functioning enough to bring them to fruition, that counts too.”

“That’s crazy!” 

Holtzmann stopped her chair and leaned forward, face mockingly serious.

“Me? Crazy?”

“It’s unhealthy.”

Holtz stood up, then, and took a dramatic bow.

“That’s- That’s- not good, Holtzmann!” Erin’s hands flailed and shook, “It’s bad!”

Holtzmann grinned like the chesire cat. 

Erin tried to beat her to the punch, “Don’t you dare say ‘well, I’m bad’.” 

“To the bone, baby!”

Erin slammed her head to her desk.

“No need to impose violence to the desk, Erin. She’s never done anything to you… that we know of. Actually, that one time, with the gum. Violence on...”

“Aren’t you tired?” Erin mumbled, her face pressed to her notebook.

“Yeah, sometimes, I guess. But I get excited about my ideas and they keep my energy up. Hey, I’m powered by machinessss! My accusations toward Kevin have all been a diversion, I am the robot.”

Erin lifted her head and sighed.

“Why don’t you just sleep?”

Erin watched as Holtzmann’s smile faded a bit, then as a smirk rose in an attempt to replace it. She brought the small-ish mechanical piece she had been working on into her hands and stared at the wall behind Erin, as she spoke in the tone that Erin had only heard once before.

“Oh, you know, insomnia. And I, uh, well-” She looked briefly at Erin, who attempted to look as open as possible, and then she returned her gaze to just behind her. 

“You know when you’re about to fall asleep? And everything in the world sort of meshes. Everything you’ve seen. Feels like it’s breaking apart and piecing together into a new reality. Physics comes undone into utter nonsense, and it’s just… perfect. A playground. Like your mind is open enough to be dreaming, but you’re still awake. And then, of course, well. You get an idea.”

Erin merely nodded, not wanting to interrupt a rare peek into Holtzmann’s mind or miss something amongst her rapid words.

“Well, there’s a choice. Stay in bed and hope that it doesn’t disappear by morning, or get up and do something about it. And I- well, when I have a choice, or I don’t know what to do, I just ask myself, ‘what kind of person do you want to be?’ So I ask myself that. Do I wanna be the person who goes back to sleep and forgets whatever crazy fragments of an idea I had by morning time? Or do I want to be the person that gets up and follows them into the night?”

She finally looked at Erin, smiling into her words.

  
“So far, the answer has always been the same.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was written between 2 and 5 am (hence the subject matter), so who knows what the quality is. I'm also not totally confident with the voice of the characters yet. But with the intensity I scour this tag for fic, I figured some others might enjoy it anyway. Possible set up for a more hurt/comfort-y spin in chapter 2, we'll see.


End file.
